


Not a bad kind of Afterlife

by Chibifukurou



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stacker Pentecost wasn't sure what he expected after he died. He'd always preferred to live for the present, rather than consider what would happen to his soul. He'd never even been convinced that his soul would exist after his body died.</p>
<p>So it was shocking when he woke up in the Shatterdome, some unknown time after he'd died blowing up Striker Eureka at the bottom of the Pacific.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a bad kind of Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brenda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/gifts).



> A huge thank you to the person who took my assignment on, when I missed the deadline due to sickness.
> 
> Also to merriman who I co-opted from the Yuletide fic exchange to get this fic betaed in time.
> 
> And Tielan for letting me post even though I missed the deadline.

Stacker Pentecost wasn't sure what he expected after he died. He'd always preferred to live for the present, rather than consider what would happen to his soul. He'd never even been convinced that his soul would exist after his body died.

So it was shocking when he woke up in the Shatterdome, some unknown time after he'd died blowing up Striker Eureka at the bottom of the Pacific.

For a while he even considered that he might be having his life flash before his eyes in the last moments before his body gave up. Hong Kong Shatterdome had been his home for years, and it made sense that if he was going to experience his past, this was where he'd end up.

After a day of wandering the Dome, walking up and down its empty halls, he began to think that this was something different. Surely, if he was reliving his life, he'd see Mako or Tamsin. Instead he was dreadfully alone, with nothing to occupy his mind.

Being purposeless was a horrible, empty feeling after all his years dedicated to fighting back against the Kaiju.

He spent the next week pacing the dome. It gave him a week to think and rethink the decisions he made in his life. He spent the last night out on the piers that surrounded the dome. Here the ocean still pounded away, drowning out the quiet that filled the Dome. He got drunk and thought about life before the Kaiju. Two things he'd never let himself do while he'd been Marshal.

He'd drunk halfway through the bottle of vodka before he finally accepted what he was most angry about. Stuck in this empty Shatterdome, he was never going to find out if Mako had managed to close the rift or if she’d survived. If he could just finish dying already maybe he'd find out. It was the first time he'd admitted, even to himself, that he'd hoped there would be an afterlife where he'd be able to look after and protect Mako.

He finally let himself cry, even if it was only a few tears that were easy to excuse as the spray coming off of the ocean. He let himself drink a little more before throwing the rest of the bottle into the sea. One last drink for the Wei Tangs, the Kaidanovskys, and Chuck Hansen.

They'd lost too many Rangers that last week, and now he wouldn’t ever know if the sacrifice had been worth it.

He decided then,that the next day he'd go out into the city. He didn't know why he was stuck in this Purgatory, but he didn't have anything else to learn here. It was time for him to move on to whatever it was that came next.

# # #

He woke up the next morning with the worst hangover he'd had in years. The noise coming from outside his quarters wasn't helping.

That was when he realized that there was noise coming from the other side of his door. He grabbed a clean uniform jacket out of his closet. He normally would have showered and put on a clean uniform. He'd been alone too long and if whatever Gods were controlling this Purgatory had decided to give him a reprieve he didn't want to miss his chance.

Outside the door, the quarters teemed with people heading to the mess for breakfast, or coming back from the night shift. Everyone that he would expect to see was there, though they were faded out - their colors not quite as vibrant as they should be. When he approached a tech who had worked to fix Gipsy Danger his hand passed right though them.

Still, this was better than being endlessly alone. At least here he had a chance to discover what had happened after he died.

He was about to head towards the Jaeger bay, to look at the war clock, when Mako came out of her room. Raleigh exited his quarters a moment later to join her in the hall. That was when Stacker saw him.

It might have been five years, but once upon a time he had known the Beckett boys well, and there was no mistaking the figure who followed Raleigh out of his quarters. Yancy Becket was following his brother. He shone like a light against the muted tones of Raleigh and Mako.

He had his head tilted to listen to Mako and Raleigh's conversation and it was was obvious that he wasn't watching where he was going. It only took Stacker a moment to grab his arm and drag him back into Raleigh's quarters. He started struggling only a few steps into the room, but Stacker was still bigger and had fought longer. It only took a few moves to pin Yancy against the wall. "Would you like to explain what is going on here?" he hissed.

Yancy's irreverent streak didn't seem to have dimmed after give years of being dead. He gave Stacker a cheeky smile, and then disappeared right through the wall.

Stacker headed back into the hallway, but there was no sign of Yancy, Mako, or Raleigh

He decided to head towards the Jaeger bay and check the war clock.

He was headed down the hallway, when the door to the Hansens’ quarters slid open. He paused, wanting to see how Herc was doing. Instead it was Chuck that came out of the quarters. He was as brightly colored as Yancy had been. Stacker supposed he should have been expecting this. If he was in this half-life then it made sense that Chuck would be as well.

That didn't make it easier to know what to say when dealing with the kid he'd gotten killed.

Typical of Chuck, he didn't wait around for Stacker to know what to say. "If you're looking for Yancy, he'll probably be in the mess with Raleigh and Mako right now." He brushed past Stacker, in the direction of the gym.

Stacker considered following, but headed for the mess instead. He still didn't know what to say to Chuck and he had a feeling that Yancy would be able to give him the answers he needed.

# # #

Chuck was correct. Yancy was leaning against the table where Raleigh and Mako were eating. He was keeping an eye on his surroundings this time. When Stacker entered the mess, Yancy was immediately up and heading away from the table.

Stacker didn't chase him. He'd already proven that it wouldn't work. Instead he took the seat next to Mako. She and Raleigh were discussing their plans to explore the Market in downtown Hong Kong. It had been a day trip that Mako had tried to get Stacker to go on, multiple times.

He was glad that she found somebody that could keep up with her boundless energy.

He got to spend half the day with them, before Yancy returned. Mako and Raleigh were sparring in the Kwoon while Stacker watched.   
  
"So you're just going to stake them out until I talk to you, Sir?" Yancy asked.

"If that's what it takes."

Yancy leaned against the wall next to Stacker. "So what is it you want to know?"

There were a lot of things he wanted to know, but first: "Do you know why we are here?"

"Here as in the Shatterdome, or here as in not dead?"

"Whichever you know the answer to."

"I don't know for sure, but from what I can tell we're stuck here until we deal with unfinished business. As far as the Shatterdome, if you're like me, you're stuck here 'cause they're here." He nodded at Mako and Raleigh, who had separated to get a little breathing room between matches. "He's my unfinished business, and I'm willing to bet she's yours."

"How do you know that my unfinished business isn't stopping the Apocalypse?"

"Because you wouldn't have come back if you were just around to save the world. Newsflash, the Kaiju crawled back into their hole. The world is saved. Hip, hip, Hooray!" Despite the jaunty words, Yancy seemed bored of the whole conversation.

Stacker couldn't think of any other unfinished business he might have left behind. He and Mako had always known that he was going to die. They had made their peace and said their goodbyes.

Unable to stay still, he left the Kwoon, trusting that Yancy would keep an eye on Mako and Raleigh.

He made his way to his old office, still trying to make sense of Yancy's claim that he was being kept here because of unfinished business and trying to understand why he hadn't been with Mako immediately if she was his purpose for staying here.

He should have expected it but it was still a surprise when he found Chuck sitting on the floor of the Marshal's office. His fingers scratched at Max's ears. Herc was busy with paperwork.

"Did you catch up with Yancy?" Chuck asked.

"I did."

"And did he have the answers you were looking for?"

"Not exactly." He still did not know what to say to Chuck. So he chose to start with something innocuous. He nodded to Max. "Can he feel you?"

Chuck shrugged. "He seems to enjoy it anyway. So what did Yancy tell you?"

"He claims we're here because of unfinished business."

"I suppose you could put it that way."

"You have a different theory." He moved behind Herc to read the screen.

"I think we're here to watch over the people we cared about in life."

It was virtually the same theory as Yancy had, though it had the same weakness. "Then why keep us away from them, to start with?"

"How long did it take you to make peace with being dead?"

That pulled Stacker's attention back to Chuck. "What?"

"Did you accept it right away?"

"I knew I was going to die,when I stepped into Striker Eureka."

"That didn't answer my question."

"Listen." He stepped around the desk, planning to move into Chuck's personal space.

Chuck shuffled back a little, but didn't bother to act intimidated. "That empty place we went to after we died. It seems to last until we make peace with our past and what led to our deaths."

"What makes you think that?"

"Yancy likes to talk. He says it took him months to get out of there. He kept thinking he was having a drift dream. Even now he doesn't remember being ripped out of the drift."

"It took me a week, but it doesn't make sense." He turned away from Chuck. His attention went to the large windows that looked out over Hong Kong. The view had been his favorite part of this office. "I knew I was going out there to die."

"How many other times were you suppose to die but you didn't? It's not a surprise that in your heart of hearts, you didn't expect this to kill you either. After all, Rangers are known for being stubborn beyond all sense."

Herc stood up and headed for the door. Chuck and Max stood to follow him. "I hope you figure out whatever it is that's bothering you, sir."

# # #

Stacker waited for Yancy in the hallway that led to quarters. As expected, he was still following Raleigh. It was easy enough to catch his eye and motion for him to follow Stacker into his quarters. He came, but not before brushing a hand across Raleigh's shoulder.

Raleigh seemed to subconsciously react to the action. His body shifted a little towards Yancy, and he appeared to relax.

Once they were in the privacy of Stacker's quarters, he had to ask, "Can they tell we're here?"

Yancy shrugged and took one of the seats in front of Stacker's desk. "They seem to feel our presence, if only subconsciously. Don't seem to know what the feeling is, but it's nice to know that you can still help. Even if it's only a little comfort at the end of a long day."

 Stacker filed that bit of information away for later consideration. He headed over to his desk to riffle through the bottom drawer for liquor. The bottle of vodka that he'd tossed into the sea was sitting exactly where it had been before he'd died. It was full as the day the Kaidanovskys gave it to him.

He considered leaving it there, but he’d worry about how real the booze was later. He wasn't going to talk to Yancy Becket about the meaning of life without something to ease the way. He poured a few fingers of vodka into the two tumblers he kept in the drawer. "The Kaidanovskys gave this to me for when we won the war. I suppose now is as good a time to drink it as any."

"Think they'd consider this a good use of vodka," Yancy agreed.

Stacker didn't want to think too deeply on it. "Did they come here, after?"

"Nah. I figure if they’re haunting anywhere it'll be the Russian Dome. Probably didn't come back at all though."

"What made them different?"

Yancy took a swig of his drink. "I'm pretty sure that they died with the only kind of unfinished business either of them had. If one of them lived, no doubt the other would be constantly under foot. Those two though, they were a land unto themselves. Don't think they'd let anything keep them apart. Even if they were dead."

Stacker leaned against his desk. "So you think that we're here for the people we left behind?"

"Who told you?" Yancy stopped half-way through the question. "Stubborn little shit turns out to be the most well-adjusted of us, and he's still a mouthy little know it all."

"Meaning?" Stacker prompted when Yancy seemed more interested in contemplating his drink then explaining whatever revelation he'd had.

"Meaning that Chuck Hansen popped back up in the Dome barely two hours after he died. Didn't seem to even question the fact that he was dead. It's annoying."

"He said you took months."

Yancy knocked the rest of his drink back and held his tumbler out for a refill. "Kept thinking I'd just chased the rabbit. Figured if I found my way back out, then I'd still be alive. Didn't work out that way."

No, Stacker supposed it hadn't worked that way at all. Still, he wasn't a cruel man. He poured another couple fingers into Yancy's glass. "Do you agree with Chuck? Are we just here to watch over the living?"

"Don't know. But I've never seen anybody come back that hadn't drifted at least once. I'm still not sure we aren't just ghosts left over from the drift."

Stacker chose not to question Yancy's interpretation. If you had to accept your death to move on, then Yancy Beckett was going to be haunting the Shatterdome until Raleigh Becket passed on, if not even longer than that. "And if you think that we're here because of unfinished business then what happens to you when you figure out what you need to finish?"

"We disappear. Last people I saw leave just walked through a door and into some other place. All I could see was light but they talked like they could see everybody they'd lost."

Stacker considered whether he wanted to ask who it was that Yancy had seen. He'd been careful not to mention names and he looked haunted. Stacker held back the urge to ask. Maybe later, once this wasn't all so new and raw. "So you think that's going to happen to me?"

"Don't know, sir. You ready to hand the Shatterdome over to somebody else's leadership and trust Raleigh to look after Mako?" Yancy asked.

Stacker felt the instinctual rejection of that idea in his very soul. So maybe Yancy was right and he did have some unfinished business after all. "I always did want to see what happened to the world after we canceled the apocalypse."

Yancy smiled and held his drink out for a toast. "I'll drink to that, sir."

Stacker clinked his glass against Yancy's before knocking the rest of the vodka back. Maybe he wasn't ready to accept his own death but it looked like this version of the afterlife wouldn't be too bad after all. He could have worse company, and he'd get his wish. He'd get to watch Mako live in a world free of the fear of Kaiju.

All in all, not the worst afterlife he could have imagined.


End file.
